


Case Analysis

by skeeno



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Backstory, Copley character exploration, How did he KNOW?, Multi, Nominative Determinism, an attempt at historical accuracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 10:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25468942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeeno/pseuds/skeeno
Summary: It's not totally out of the ordinary for the people Copley meets in his line of work to be extraordinary.But he's intrigued by these four.
Relationships: James Copley & Nile Freeman, James Copley/Sarah Copley, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 89
Kudos: 614





	1. Establishing Parameters

James Copley had only been intrigued, at first. He met plenty of strange people in his business, and the men he met to talk to about Surabaya weren’t immediately stranger than your common gun for hire.

Booker, he learned, was who has been on the other end of the anonymous numbered email address and the quick phone calls he’d been exchanging. The other man was introduced as Joe. He didn’t get a full name from either of them, and didn’t expect to. They order their coffees in practiced Italian, though he still couldn’t place Booker’s accent, and couldn’t even begin with Joe’s. Given that they hadn’t deigned to ask about _his_ accent yet, though, he couldn’t exactly ask about theirs.

Based on watching them walk across the Piazza to the appointed coffee bar, there were at least two guns hidden on each of them when they sit down. And yet the only thing he hadn’t expected to see out of a pair of stateless mercenaries of any repute is Booker’s wedding ring. He chose to ignore both the guns and the ring, spinning his own on his finger.

James had wanted very practical specifics, that first time, so he asked about the nuts and bolts of their operation.

“We fully expect to be able to comply with the specs you sent us. We bill on a quote for resources, then again on delivery. I’m sure Rourke told you.” Joe said, leaning back in his café chair. Behind sunglasses, James barely caught the man’s glance off to the right, towards the roofline on the shadowed side of the square.

“How many on the extraction team?” James asked.

“Four.” Booker said shortly, as if waiting for James to object. James blinked slowly, and desperately wanted to.

“Does four include the sniper above the bank over there?” James asked, trying to get some of his footing back.

“You bet. Rourke tell you the story about that, from Vancouver?” Joe said, quirking an eyebrow. Booker smirked.

“All I need to know about Vancouver is that the Canadians were sufficiently impressed for Rourke to give you my information. What I know about Rourke is that he’s fairly difficult to impress.” James replied, staying as neutral as possible. He was a little shaken by the idea of _four_ still, given that what he _did_ know about Vancouver might lead someone to believe that an army had materialized out of the Pacific. He’d come to these people at this moment because he was expecting something on a similar scale.

He handed over the brief to Booker, who in turn handed some of it – the financials, and the scans of the doctor’s notes – over to Joe. James considered them again while they looked things over. Neither of them even had any visible scars.

If four people could do things like were done in Vancouver, James should have heard about it already.

“If the Agency heard about you from the Canadians, where did the Canadians hear about you from?” he directed at Joe, while Booker made a note on the schematics. He pitched the question as casually as possible. An agent covering his bases. 

“We met Rourke in Lebanon. 2006?” Joe said. It seems like a suggestion, rather than a guess. Then he flipped his sunglasses up and went back to his numbers. James made a mental note to ask Rourke about it. And furthermore, to ask how four people managed what James has been reliably informed was one of the largest averted disasters in modern history.

After another five minutes, in which Joe underlined about five words in the notes that Booker seemed to find very interesting indeed, Booker took out a cellphone and made a call.

“Andy, we’ve got it. We good to go?” He asked, and James heard, briefly, a woman’s voice from the other end of the line. Booker tapped the table twice to get Joe’s attention and they exchanged a look before nodding at James.

“We’ll fly out tonight. Expect a charge in the next 24 hours. We’ll invoice you the full amount when it’s done.” Joe said, before downing the rest of his drink and standing up. Booker does the same, leaving some Euros on the table for their coffees.

“How can I expect proof of-“ James began before Booker interrupted him.

“Trust me, you’ll know when we’ve got your guy.” He said. James looked up at them quizzically as they left, only just catching Joe’s wink in the direction of the mysterious sniper. As they turn the corner he called, not Director Pollock, who he had pitched this hairbrained scheme to, but Rourke.

“Beirut? Oh, I dunno, ’97?”

After taking out every forgery, blatant falsehood, and piece of unsubstantiated hearsay he could immediately identify (A Bulgarian named Nicholas Smith? A German Joseph Jones?) James frowned at what he knew to be true – the scantest CIA file he’d ever seen in his life. It was barely more than he got from the short conversation he had in Milan.

Four people are represented in a handful of visas, passports, and mission logs – Booker and Joe, the woman called Andy from the other end of the phone, and the man who Gordon Rourke positively identifies as the sniper, “Nicky. Bastard shot off the end of my smoke from down the block.” – none of whom has a full name, a past, even a country of origin. They all just suddenly appeared in 1995, with no evidence that they’d ever been trained, educated, or even born.

At least eight jobs carried out on behalf of Five Eyes agencies, and plenty more for other governments and in private contracts. Even more jobs which they had turned down, seemingly at random. One well-hidden email address for business inquiries and truly untrackable finances. At least thirty eyewitness reports from top-flight international operatives and not one who didn’t think James had lost his mind for digging into the private affairs of the deadliest ghosts in the world. Sometimes James looked at the board that he had everything laid out on, with the note above Joe’s photo that read “sword?” and the consultation with the expert in Italian dialects, and wondered that himself.

“I swear, Gordon, neither of them looked a day older than this.” James said, gesticulating with a scan of one of the fake passports – Sébastien Booker, Belgian, born 1956, and just a little too old to have been sitting across from James drinking espresso four months previously. Something about that rubbed him the wrong way, that Booker had to be in his 50s at the youngest, and still capable of the things laid out in the mission reports in front of James. Joseph Jones, born 1967, certainly couldn’t be the same Joe that Booker had met in Milan.

Rourke looked at him, looked around the back conference room where James had hung up all of his papers, then rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Jim, are you sure this is what you want to be focusing on while Maura is sick?”

The breakthrough was when he noticed what kind of jobs they took.

It was almost charming, to think of Good Samaritan mercenaries, but in twenty years their only jobs on the books were rescues, extractions, and the aversion of disasters. It just so happened that they were incredibly good at them.

So he started by looking into jobs they might have done on their own initiative. Every once in a while, a job they had clearly been contacted about would go very badly for the people who ended up taking it, and he would add it to his timeline. Then for every one of those, every Vancouver, Surabaya, or Beirut, there was a Mogadishu or a Darfur, where they clearly hadn’t been hired to be there. You could pretty much always find at least one of the four in the middle of any humanitarian crisis over the last twenty years, lined up against tanks or riot shields. He stopped trying to follow their trails, and instead started checking for them in the background of photos of war zones.

He just kept finding photos – Nicky and Joe administering first aid, Booker holding up the rear for evacuating refugees, Andy standing between a police officer and a woman on the ground – and wondering how they survived each time. How they stayed entirely unchanging in the face of the most significant events of the 21st century. Eventually, cursing his own curiosity, he started working his way back.

Then he _kept_ going back. He’d had estimated ages next to their names since the beginning – Booker and Andy, 50s? Nicky and Joe, 40s? – but the numbers just kept working their way higher, and the run ins with death just kept getting more ridiculous. Eventually it just wasn’t plausible that Joe or Booker, men he’d seen up close and in person, could be 70 year old unscarred veterans of every war of the last forty years.

He remembered precisely which photo made him commit to the theory. He’d gone back, far back, out of a sense of fascination with the event more than the possibility of seeing a familiar face, and because historical research was at least something else to do. And yet he found them, Nicky and Joe. He would recognize Joe’s eyes or the line of Nicky’s nose anywhere at that point, and there they were, in the middle distance, while the camera trained on Martin Luther King speaking. James had turned and turned his wedding ring, until finally settled, and printed out the photograph to add to the growing wall in his home office.


	2. Identifying Targets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once Copley accepts the idea of immortals, he does what any analyst would do. Run down the possibilities.

_Excerpted from the Notes of James Alexander Copley, April 2017-December 2019 / Original Title: "pre-1850 - potential IDs"_

“Joe” – Yusuf - aka Joseph Jones (FRG), Joseph Painter (60s US, 16th c UK?), Yusuf Sa’id (Indonesia?), possibly “Giuseppe da Madia” (Italy), various poetic pseudonyms?

Possible ID - Yusuf ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muhammad al-Kaysāni – 1st Crusade

  * Artist/Artisan, born 1066-1067, possibly in Jabal el-Manar (now Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia)? If so, family relocate to Mahdia almost immediately after. May have died 1099, Siege of Jerusalem. Would be 30-33 at the time of the Crusade, so right for Joe
  * Family relation to/loyalty to Zirid Dynasty? Establishment of Khurasanid Dynasty in Tunis in 1059 motivation of move to Mahdia? Father (Ibrāhīm) was significantly wealthy/influential as of 1070s-80s based on archeological findings, seemed to have funded his son’s travels to some extent
  * Origin of name al-Kaysāni? Laqab? Nisbah?
  * Extensive traveller based on distribution of various works between 1088-1096
  * Unmarried? No wife mentioned in any historical accounts, at any rate
  * Early fighting experience – two older brothers recorded as fighters, may have defended Genoese/Pisan raid on Mahdia, 1087 – age 20-21
  * Early religious experiences – Hajj in 1089 – age 21-22
  * Scion of trading family – financial connection? Seems responsible for team finances to this day
  * Early Kufic script works in Tunisia/Andalusia by al-Kaysani resemble anonymous works found in Syria dated ~1101-1103 according to Nasir. Selling works while travelling with Nicky? Can still see resemblance in figurative works to anonymous paintings up to 15th century 
  * Counterpoint: works in Kairouan/Mahdia differ in theme to Syrian examples, and some early depictions of Nicky seem to be in different styles. Just experimentation?
  * Only recorded as calligrapher of several more poetic works, but given Joe’s poetic leanings later, some of the unattributed passages may be his own work
  * Recorded as an artist more than as a fighter. Why go to Jerusalem? Why take up arms?
  * Contact translators about possible account of sighting in Mahdia in 1107



Still not convinced about 1st Crusade vs 3rd Crusade vs 6th Crusade but al-Kaysani is the closest match artistically speaking, and the only traveller/merchant of the candidates. Early calligraphy aspect is also promising considering the dated language being used in potential works by Joe later in the millennium.

Being a contemporary of Constantine the African potentially lends credence to his choice to illustrate medical textbooks in 14th century, even if they never met? Also means that early 12th century evidence of Andy and Quynh returning West (to find Joe and Nicky) is legitimate, and accounts from 12th century North Africa have more weight

Twin emergence theory for Joe and Nicky would dictate that if Yusuf al-Kaysani is Joe, Nicky _is_ in fact Nicolò di (da?) Genova, who may have participated in the raid on Mahdia in 1087. Did they meet/fight years before killing each other?

Still a possibility that the two emerged in different crusades? Joe earlier, Nicky later? Al-Kaysani is better recorded than di Genova, pre-1096. Nothing says Joe couldn’t have killed Nicky after being killed earlier by a different Crusader.

Still no explanation for use of early weapons without a paper trail except the Nicky “Smith” theory

[ _redacted: catologue of artworks with potential attribution to "Joe" dated 1085 (Quran 2:1-4, Ink on Parchment, Mahdia, Tunisia) -2006 (Selected Hadith from the_ Sahih Muslim _, ink on postcards, Kuching, Malaysia); Excerpts from "The Collective Voice: The Anonymous Arabic Poet, 1200-1800"_ ]

“Nicky” – Nicolò? Niccolò? - aka Nicholas Smith (US, Balkans?), Nico Fabbri, Niccolò Said (Malta? Sicily?), possibly “Father Nicholas of Genoa” in early appeals to the Church?

Possible ID – Nicolò di Genova – 1st Crusade

  * Born 1069-1073 in Genoa, died 1099 in the Siege of Jerusalem, age 26-30. Slightly young?
  * Conflicting reports as to parentage – parents may have been unmarried given lack of family name (di Genova rather than da Genova? Check with Marco)? Father was probably known and wealthy, regardless, based on later occupation.
  * Taschi family claims he was the illegitimate son of one of the early Counts, which is the most often repeated story. Several other prominent Genoese families claimed relation in the Renaissance as it became more popular to associate yourself with figures from the Crusades, fictional or otherwise
  * Various family mythologies claiming relation to di Genova say he was either a priest or a particularly devout and chivalrous knight? Fr. Lorenzo Cassini’s biography suggests he was a knight who joined the priesthood in 1088 after the raid on Mahdia and left again in 1095-6 to “carry the cross” (go on crusade) but that would have been highly unusual
  * If di Genova went on raid of Mahdia in 1087, he would have been a teenager, as young as 13? Then may have taken Holy Orders very young. Possible at the older end of the age range, certainly
  * Comes to prominence on Crusade in 1099, when he supposedly fights for three days straight at the gates of Jerusalem before falling down dead. No mention of fighting a similarly undying Muslim fighter, but that may simply be bias of Christian recounting? Why no corresponding Muslim account?
  * Di Genova’s bones were supposedly returned to Genoa and buried in the Church of St George, which is obviously highly unlikely in Nicky’s case
  * Also used as a symbol in some early chivalric orders, but was unlikely to have belonged to one himself
  * Was "Father Niccolò" a stock character for complaints by Genoese clergy about the Church, based on di Genova, or was Nicky writing several appeals?
  * Not specifically noted as a marksman per the legend, but Genoa was famous for crossbowmen as early as the 11th century
  * Cassini clarifies that di Genova is “still” not a saint in the 1285 biography, which suggests that he was considered a folk saint at some point? Or a will to canonize him existed at the time? Look into religious iconography in Liguria post 11th century



Probably the most apocryphal of the possibilities - almost no primary sources or material evidence of a Nicolò di Genova beyond the mythical figure, unlike al-Kaysani who produced his own artworks/evidence, BUT: aligns nicely with best bet for Joe, al-Kaysani, and the only serious Genoese contender before the 6th Crusade (possibility remains that Nicky learned Genoese later? Doesn’t explain Venice comment in 1917 letter or story about Sampdoria from Khe Sanh ‘73 account).

If Nicky is di Genova, identification of the Giuseppe da Madia portrait of Nicky as “San Nicolò” “as described by the artist” despite not conforming to accepted portrayal of St. Nicholas is probably accurate (something of a joke by Joe?). Earliest examples of possible paintings of Nicky by Joe remain in the conversation as well.

Use of “Painter” as a surname by Joe and continued use of historical style weapons by both (plus Andy) implies that the use of “Smith” and “Fabbri” is a reference to some kind of smithing background for Nicky, which di Genova doesn’t seem to have. May have picked it up post-Crusades? May be too attached to this theory?

Look into forensic identification of skeleton in the Nicolò di Genova’s crypt? (Morbid?)

[ _redacted: Weapons of Genoese soldiers and mercenaries, 11th century to 17th century; Excerpt from "An Appeal to His Holiness from a humble Curate of Genoa regarding the Campaigns of the Church" by an Anonymous "Niccolò of Genoa" (published 1259)_ ]

“Booker” - Sebastian? – aka Sébastien Boucher (French Resistance?), August Booker, Sebastiaan Boeker (sp?)

Possible ID – Sébastien le Livre – Napoleonic Wars

  * Baptised 14 November 1770, Marseille (Another Mediterranean coast city?). Died August 1812 in Russia, age 42, executed for desertion (a little old?)
  * Foundling – childhood in La Vieille Charité almshouse, became apprenticed to trade for local printer/bookseller and politician Guillaume Vernaud in 1783 – age 12
  * Vernaud was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1791, leaving le Livre to manage the business – age 19 – track down Vernaud’s records for possible references?
  * Apparently less early combat/fighting experience than the others – possibly fought at various stages of the revolution?
  * Married Jeanne Benoît at some point, possibly by 1793. Had three sons between 1793 and 1797 – Sébastien _fils_ , Guillaume, and Jean-Pierre. Possible fourth child who did not survive (1796?)
  * Unclear when business in forgeries started. Likely during economic turmoil of revolution?
  * Possibly referenced as a drunkard in minutes of Marseille revolutionary meetings in 1796, excused as a result of “hardship”?
  * Arrested 1803 for forgery, but charges disappear. Purchased commission in Grande Armée immediately afterward – age 33 – press ganged? Convinced by Vernaud? Remember to track down forgeries of Napoleonic era currency/documents to compare to modern passports/visas from CIA files
  * No specifics from 1803 until Battle of Smolensky, 17 August 1812, when le Livre is mentioned in dispatches to Napoleon for bravery
  * Court-martialed and executed for desertion less than a week later. What changed?
  * Appeared in Marseilles again? Possibly as late as 1840? “Le fantôme de M. le Livre _père_ …” in nurse’s letter, 1834.
  * Major leap of faith: “Booker” is a pun??? Nominative determinism?
  * Alternatively, Booker is choosing the cover identities, and this explains everything



Still a lingering question about why Joe and Nicky (and possibly Andy) died in combat, but Booker was executed. Only requirement is having been a soldier/fighter at some point?

Should consider trip to Marseille for genealogical research – it’s possible any of the three sons who grew to adulthood had children who kept family records. See if any descendants became soldiers? Look into ownership of bookstore/print shop? Only confirmed property is still apartment in Paris.

Earlier/later date for Booker because of the reference to “what he did in ‘05” in misdelivered 1917 letter to Nicky might be accounted for by French annexation of Genoa in 1805? Possible hard feelings (reliant on Nicky in fact being Nicolò di Genova, of course, which is still in doubt)

Note, October 2018: Confirmed by miniature portrait of soldier owned by Jeanne le Livre made in 1807. Almost exact match for Booker. (Also owned a miniature produced in 1819 - Joe?) 

[ _redacted: identification papers and documents in various names dated 1818-2011; "On the Necessity of a State Press" by Guillaume Vernaud (published 1792)_ ]

“Andy” – aka Andronika? Andromache? Male disguises: Hector Andrews? Andrew Virgil? Andrea, often combined with either Nicky or Joe’s pseudonymous surname – Jones, Smith, Painter, Sa’id, Fabbri, etc. More recently Andrée Boucher or Andrea Hector

  * “Andronika” is likely too recent to be the root of “Andy” but Balkan origins are still theoretically possible?



Possible ID: Andromache, would-be victim of the Minotaur?

  * Most unlikely, for obvious reasons



Possible ID: Andromache, wife of Hector?

  * Seems to play off of this with choice of pseudonyms, but may just be a classical literary reference
  * Suggests she was born or at least lived in a Greek city in Asia Minor? Which is a possibility
  * Marriage seems unlikely if she could have met "Quynh" or "Lykon" by this point, but date they met is still unclear



Possible ID: Andromache, Queen of the Amazons?

  * Possibly Scythian? Female warriors, likely basis of the Amazons
  * May predate the Scythians and have joined Scythian society after the destruction of an earlier nomadic people?
  * Evidence of central European graves of warrior women containing proto-cultic figures later associated with Amazons? Would date Andy as early as 4700-4500 BCE
  * Andromache may STILL not be her real name



Just too early to tell?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a (very brief!) rundown of what's historical and what isn't -
> 
> Joe's family is obviously made up, and who knows if an 11th century calligrapher and artist would have been that well documented, but the political situation around when he was born is accurate. This would mean he was probably a Sunni Muslim, as the Zirids were (they converted in the 1040s and split from the Fatimids, it was a big deal and there was some major destruction), with a nominal loyalty to the Sunni Abbasid Caliphate (and possibly the Seljuk Turks, who held the real power), rather than the Shia Fatimids. It should be noted that the Fatimids had just seized control of a large section of Palestine, including Jerusalem, at the time of the First Crusade. I personally don't see the problem in jumping through some hoops to get a Sunni Yusuf to Jerusalem in 1099 to fight alongside Fatimid soldiers, considering nothing was as neat and tidy as doubtful historians want it to be. However, Antioch, which was a Seljuk holding, might technically be a better bet for where they first fought?
> 
> The Genoese/Pisan attack on Mahdia in 1087 also really happened. The whole fleet in the harbour at Mahdia was apparently burned, which must have been devastating. It was also only 20 years after the dust-up between the Zirids and the Fatimids. There's obviously no way to know whether Nicky would have gone (according to his canon birth year he would have been 17-18) but it was one of the primary reasons why I chose Mahdia rather than Tunis or Kairouan. It builds some specific antipathy on Yusuf's part towards Genoa, in particular.
> 
> Constantine the African is a monk from the 11th century who originally hailed from "Carthage" and was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the advanced medical knowledge of the Arab world to the comparatively backwards Italian peninsula (it was still divining your illness from jars of pee, but, you know. Swings and roundabouts). I just had to include him because if I don't include one medical history detail in something I write I may die.
> 
> For Nicky - People really did just... make shit up about their Crusader ancestors, and I liked the idea of Copley being as skeptical about Nicky really existing as we would be about any other unkillable berserker in the Siege of Jerusalem. I also liked the idea of him being an almost mythical figure, because... who'd write anything down about a random knight until he turned out to be immortal?
> 
> The "Taschi" don't exist, but they are meant to evoke the Fieschi, a real Genoese family who first rose to power around that time and ended up being a very very big deal. If Nicky was a Fieschi, even an illegitimate one, he'd certainly have the time and money to become a knight and/or the Church and go on the so-called "Prince's Crusade" as we know he did. Also, he'd be related to two popes and a Saint. 
> 
> Also, I, like Copley, have gotten obsessed with the idea that Nicky potentially picked up blacksmithing as a trade post-Crusades and is now the team armourer. The love is stored in the cool sword! 
> 
> Booker - I don't know anything about the French Revolution! Or Napoleon! Sorry! Also, all my French is of the distinctly Quebecois variety, so if the names seem weird it's because they're all from 17th century voyageurs. 
> 
> All the dates are right, at least, and there is in fact a beautiful old chapel/almshouse in Marseille called the Vieille Charité which was completed a few years before Booker was born. I have no idea whether a foundling or orphan might have been raised there, but it struck me as a possibility, especially given his relationship to family. 
> 
> There is no Guillaume Vernaud, as far as I know, but he is the kind of man who might have found his way into the Legislative Assembly - middle class, potentially publishing Revolutionary propaganda. I imagine he ran into some waif named "le Livre", had a little chuckle, and gave the kid a shot.
> 
> Despite what you may have heard from... everyone, Napoleon's Russian campaign happened over the summer! Their supply problems were caused by the Russian Army's scorched earth policy as they retreated, not by a Russian winter. Also, yes, Genoa became a client state to the French in the 1790's, and was fully annexed in 1805. Booker may have been there, or Joe was talking about 1905. Who knows!
> 
> As for Andy, the three Andromaches are all actual (mythological) figures. I don't personally think she has anything to do with Hector's wife, but she pals around with a bunch of nerds, so she has to hear about the Iliad all the time. The last bit, about warrior graves, is my own invention, but I do imagine that Andy and her culture predate the Scythians.


	3. Continuing Objectives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nile is just getting started having a history.

James had gotten far better acquainted with the art world as of late, so he put some thought to what Nile reminded him of at that moment.

“Who was the Dutch artist that always had the window at the left of the frame?” he mused aloud.

“Vermeer. Twenty-two out of thirty-four paintings? Something like that.” Nile said, not looking up.

It was something about the light, he decided. Or the studious subject.

Nile was engrossed in one of the folders floating around his office – what he’d somewhat pompously called “the appendices” to his research. He’d come into the room about an hour before to find her in the middle of a pile. Now she was almost all the way through, going over the various detritus of immortal lives that had no obvious place elsewhere. He watched her flip through the photos of all the various objects instead of working – campaign buttons and bayonets, scraps of handwriting in any number of languages.

“I’m sure you could ask them about all this. They seem perfectly happy to reminisce. It would take significantly less time than it took me to track down Joe’s odes to Mughal architecture.” James had said at first, settling behind his desk. She’d just given him a tight-lipped smile. Eventually, though, not long after the Vermeer question, Nile got stuck on a photo. Then she started reading aloud from the label.

“Treasured coral and silver Rosary of Father Miguel Pareiro, Maicao, Colombia, born 1809. Received as a child from ‘a pale-eyed soldier’ per an 1866 letter. Inscription in Arabic reads ‘To Nico. I am sorry if I am not allowed to inscribe prayer beads.’ Pareiro went on help facilitate the building of the first Mosque in the city.” She recited, then looked up at James. “This is a pretty thick folder, just for the stuff you could find. Do you think Nicky even remembers giving away a rosary? Hell, do you think Joe remembers giving it to him?” she asked. James sighed.

“Probably not.” He admitted.

“Someone should. Someone should remember. And they don’t. Not all of it.” She said simply.

“You’ll be just the same someday, I’m sure. Too many good deeds to remember all of them.” James replied, leaning back in his chair. Nile frowned. Her fingers danced over Nicky’s gifted rosary, and she turned to take in James’ boards; brief moments captured of the thousands of years of life Andy and the others had lived.

He had filled it out some since coming to know all of them personally, as well as expanding on his notes. Nile and Joe had happily pointed out the misattributed works in James’ attempt at art history, before Joe laid out his lineage back to the 6th century. Nicky had mostly complained about the perfectly good daggers he would still be using if they weren’t in arms collections somewhere, all the while slashing red pen through various 16th century biographies. Andy had even begrudgingly allowed him to make a list of the places they had been stashing priceless antiquities so that James could have them properly preserved. A country cottage in Devon was quickly building a collection to rival some of the world’s more acquisitive museums. But it would never be everything. Not even close.

Later, in private, Nicky had served a reminder of that by handing over the address of an apartment in Paris that James had already known about, along with a clumsy sketch of a box – one thing which would not be going to Devon, which hadn't been forgotten, but was held too close to join James' growing files and appendices. 

“I hope I’m not. Forgetting-” Nile said after a long moment, before pausing and then turning back to James. “It did Andy good to be reminded.”

Her gaze sharpened, and she stood up and crossed the room, placing the folder full of photos and excerpts, on James’ desk, carefully squared with his other work.

“Your wife’s name was Dr. Maura Igwe.” She said, leaning down and looking James straight in the eye. He twitched and clenched his left hand - obvious tells he cared less about these days. “She studied the impact of endocrine disruptors on tumour formation. Her research saved lives. And any one of those people might save more lives. I’m going to remember her for that. But every once in a while I want you to remind me why. Deal?”

James looked back up at Nile, who had extended a hand to shake. He took it.

“Deal.”

“I won’t tell the others, but you can start by writing all of this stuff down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure this is the last chapter. If I continue to have Thoughts about this movie I'll take more drastic action.


End file.
